After party musing.

The following was written on my phone between waltzes, foxtrots, bursts of gypsy taps and amazing ceroc to a brass band that played all my favourite lovey-dovey songs.

I’m definitely getting a brass ensemble for any personal dance event I will have in the future.

It is one thing to go to a ball/dance competition and watch elegant elegant couples swirl on the dance floor in their sparkly dresses and black-as-night tailsuits.

It is another thing to go to a ball and watch grown up adults who I know was major power holders on the hospital board do the macarena, the chicken dance, and YMCA in quick succession.

Its odd. I find that whenever I am at a dance or a ball, I don’t dance. Not really. I’m not too sure why, anyway.

I seem to go into incredibly sombre moods whenever there is music and dance combined. I must admit, dance episodes where I am swept off my feet by the awesomeness of it all has been few and far in between. There is always that wait for the right song, the right beat, the right rhythm, the right kind of dance.

Interesting song combination – Lou Bega’s Mambo No.5 and Vengaboys’s Boom Boom Boom Boom. I want you in my room. PHWOAR.

Now another interesting bit. The song chorus goes, “I wanna have sex on the beach, come on move your body.” There are all these people of at least 40, plus elderly elderly ladies trying to gyrate to this kind of music.

God is good. I haven’t laughed like that in a while.

On a completely different note, its funny how when one ceroc person recognises another, we group together like flies on a pile of cow dung.

I was watching this couple dancing on the floor and I was literally going through all the moves they were doing inside my head. And then when I asked the lady for a dance, the husband and I ended up exchanging numbers and somehow promising to start ceroc in Wangy.

As much as I like ceroc, its a very flashy dance. Very very flashy. All the moves are meant to be attention grabbing, rather than dance partner connecting. Its meant for audience attention, rather than personal enjoyment enjoyment, if you know what I mean. Although I must say, watching one suddenly get it and understand what on earth is going on is immensely gratifying and I enjoy myself as much as I can on the dance floor. That’s part of the reason why we do it anyway. We’ve gotta enjoy ourselves somehow!

A number of people came up and told me that I was an “amazing dancer.” But the comment I appreciated most was that, “It was very entertaining to watch you dance.”

That’s half the point, isn’t it? I certainly had fun on the dance floor. And that’s it, isn’t it? If people know you’re enjoying yourself on the dance floor, they will enjoy watching you dance.

And while we’re on the topic of dancing, I still cannot do the whole jiggling and vibrating thing on the dance  floor. Its my curse, I guess. I appreciate how people can do it butI think that I can’t do it so I start to despise it. Stupid of me, I know. Tofupuff tells me to chill and relax, let go and stop being so damn rigid. She means well. And sometimes, that’s when the best things happen.

However, if you watch half the people on the dance floor doing that, they are bloody self conscious of the way they move, whether their bum looks big in that dress and they end up jogging on the spot and moving their fists up and down with their elbows tucked in by their sides. Honestly. What kind of dancing is THAT? But I guess, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. Fair enough.

Talking with the couple, I gathered even more stories about ceroc in Wangy. There were a lot of stories and truth be told, It was horrifying to hear.

From the Redhead, who seemed reluctant to divulge any real information, she mentioned that the guy who used to run it ran the franchise into the ground and that other teachers and trainee teachers had to try and keep it afloat for as long as possible. The guy that ran it also had a bad reputation around Wangy and especially in a town of this size, bad reps spread quickly. Thus, ceroc became synonymous with this man.

The husband of the lady I danced with also mentioned the same fact, that this guy who ran ceroc was not “popular” and thus, its eventual demise.

However, when they first started, they had so many people turning up that they had to turn people away for fire hazard reasons. The crowd was booming and it was bloody awesome, apparently.

And then, the husband mentioned that when the ballroom groups heard of ceroc, they boycotted it by organising classes on the nights that ceroc was being held.

Now, he was telling me this while I sat next to him in obviously a ballroom tailsuit and has been dancing ballroom for about half the night. I nodded my head politely and just took it for a fact.

With all this in mind, I thought back to the time when I met this lady in Wangy as well who did ceroc and she was saying that if I would set up a class, she would be more than happy to help me out in any way she can. The couple seemed pretty keen as well on ceroc restarting in Wangy.

Obviously, I’ve thought about starting a ceroc franchise for a long time. I’m in love with dance and with dancing in fact, that one of my wishes is to become a dance teacher. But I’ve come up with several reason why I don’t want to.

1. I am not sure if I want to stay here any longer than I do. I first thought to myself when I came here, “I’m just doing my two year contract and then I’m off somewhere!” But if I do this, start a franchise and all, I don’t think I’ll be prepared for the implications nor the fact that its a business and I honestly suck in terms of being a social dance butterfly.

2. With other dance groups being involved, I’m not exactly sure if I want to be the “other dance teacher.” With bad reputations and the like abound in this stupid place, it makes it hard enough that I’m relatively unknown, new to the place and I would probably be chased out with pitchforks soon enough rather than be allowed to stay and try to teach a new dance.

3. Its a bloody business I’m going to look at starting! Money flowing in, maintaining clientele, honestly, all I want to do is just teach for the fun and enjoyment of dance rather than end up doing the accounts over and over again at the end of the night. I don’t want to end up like the branch in Welly where its become strictly business and maintaining clients’ interests and counting the dollar bills as they come through the door.

4. I do a fulltime 40 hour week. I’m not sure if I can find it in myself to do another 8 hours on top of that. Would be fun in the process of destroying myself physically and mentally, I’m sure.

I don’t want to lose that authentic joy of dancing that I started out with. This is what I started out with, not what I lost in the process.

Perhaps this is why I’m always waiting for the right song, the right dance, the right beat, the right rhythm, the right everything. No matter what I’m dancing to, it’s gotta be right.

I’m trying to look for happiness, I think. And all I’m finding is sore feet, sweat drenched clothes, and probably 300 burnt calories by the end of the night but that feeling where “I look at you and you look at me and we’re both sweat tinged and fatigued and breathless and I’m holding on to your hand and all I know is that I’m happy” is like the elusive high that ultrarunners run for miles to get and cocaine addicts who have built up an extremely high tolerance to the drug smoke incessantly to get.

Oh, fsck. I hate it when I get depressingly philosophical.